Morning Star by Pierce Brown

 (The current list) 

Finished April 17, so it's been a minute and the details are fuzzy at this point. 

As a reminder, Darrow was born a Red in a sci-fi world with a strict class based society. Reds are at the bottom of the heap; Golds are at the top. So, in book 1, Red Rising, Darrow gets a genetic make-over and is turned into a Gold by a rebel group. The idea is that he work his way to the top of Gold society and then use his influence to dismantle it. It was always going to come apart. Eventually someone was going to figure out that Darrow was not who he said he was and that's the main thrust of Morning Star.

It wasn't a bad book. In many ways, it was an improvement over the first two. However, I just got so tired of watching Darrow make choices that were predictably bad and horrible consequences always followed. Brown built this expectation that horrible things were going to happen to all my favorite characters and Darrow and it got a little tedious. Strangely, I get why my students are so fond of the books. For me though, I think I'm putting the series down. 

I hope the vague whispers of a show pan out. It could make for some really good TV. 

July List

June was a phenomenal month for reading. I managed 18 books over the month which is a lot. I do love the summer. I don't realistically think that I can do it again in July but I'm sure going to try.  I also discovered the Centennial Challenged for the Dekalb Library System which is celebrating a 100 years of service to the community. So, the CC numbers on some of these are books that meet some category in the challenge. You can mostly ignore them but if you are interested in the challenge you can find it here. 

I'm really having a hard time keeping up with the reviews. There's no real reason that should be true; I have plenty of time right now. I'll keep working on it.

July List

1. The Most by Jessica Anthony (Library)
2. *The Last Windwitch by Jennifer Adam (Library CC38)
3. *A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah (NF - CC82)
4. *Bears Discover Fire by Terry Bisson (CC-97)
5. *In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (NF - CC 5)
6. *The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan (TBR - Library CC38)
7. Dead Girls Don't Dream by Nino Cipri (Library)
8. The Chinese Cookbook by Craig Claiborne and Virginia Lee (NF)
9. Science Experiments You Can Eat by Vicki Cobb
10. The Expanse Series by James S.A. Corey
1. Leviathan Wakes (Finished 1/9/2025)
2. Caliban's War (Finished 1/25/2025)
3. Abaddon's Gate (Finished 3/31/2025)
4. Cibola Burn (Finished 6/28/2025)
5. *Nemesis Games (CC-78)
6. Babylon's Ashes
7. Tiamat's Wrath
8. Persepolis Rising
9. Leviathan Falls
11. Atlas of AI by Kate Crawford (NF)
12. Inspector Morse: The Daughters of Cain by Colin Dexter
13. Radicalized by Cory Doctorow
14. The French Girl by Lexie Elliott (Borrowed from Dad)
15. *Anita de Monte Laughs Last by Xochitl Gonzalez (TBR - Library CC-9)
16. *The Appeal by Janice Hallett (TBR - Library CC-19)
17. *The Girl From Everywhere Heidi Heilig (CC 29)
18. J.W. Wells & Co. Series by Tom Holt
1. The Portable Door
2. In Your Dreams
3. Earth, Air, Fire and Custard
4. You Don't Have to Be Evil to Work Here, But it Helps
5. The Better Mousetrap
6. May Contain Traces of Magic
7. Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Sausages
8. The Eight Reindeer of the Apocalypse
19. Direct Descendant by Tanya Huff (Library)
20. A Map of Home by Randa Jarrar 
21. *The Ruba'iyat of Omar Khayyam by Omar Khayyam (CC 45)
22. A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher (Library)
23. A House with Good Bones by T. Kingfisher (Finished 7/2/2025)
24. Smithsonian American Table by Lisa Kingsley (NF)
25. The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery (NF)
26. *At the Fount of Creation by Tobi Obundiran (Library CC-50)
27. Umami Bomb by Raquel Pelzel (NF)
28. Project-Based Writing by Liz Prather (NF)
29. The Fragile Threads of Power by V.E. Schwab
30. The Writing Rope by Joan Sedita (NF)
31. Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart
32. All Better Now by Neal Shusterman
33. *White Teeth by Zadie Smith (CC 13)
34. John Cleaver Series by Dan Wells
1. I Am Not a Serial Killer (Finished 5/15/2025)
2. Mr. Monster - (Finished 6/3/2025)
3. I Don't Want to Kill You (Finished 6/24/2025)
4. The Devil's Only Friend  (Finished 2/17/20250 )
5. Over Your Dead Body (Library)
6. Nothing Left to Lose
35. Crosstalk by Connie Willis